Magnates and their honours · The Uyghur kingdom of Qocho and Beshbaliq · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Turfan district beks

The Turfan depression is a chain of oases: Qocho and Yarkhoto in the middle (the idiqut's own), Toksun on the west where the Karashahr road leaves, Pichan, Lukchun and Toyuq on the east where the Flaming Mountains cut the valleys that hold the cave temples.

Each district is farmed from its own streams and underground canals and answers to a bek or tutuq for the idiqut; the monasteries hold a large share of the fields and rent them to tenants. The Toksun end is the frontier with the Tarim towns of Karashahr and Kucha.

Who he is

Title
The begs and tegins who govern the districts of the Turfan depression for the idiqut
Since
not known
Born
not known
Family
Branches of the royal house, landed families and the abbots of the great monasteries
Confidence
low

The Turfan documents name district officers of the 13th and 14th centuries. For 1200 no name is known.

Overlord

The idiqut

What it holds

  • Toksun and the Karashahr road at its Turfan end
  • Pichan (Shanshan) and the road to Hami
  • Lukchun and the oasis south of the Flaming Mountains
  • Toyuq and the cave valleys

How it was acquired

By office under the idiqut.

Allies and rivals

Karashahr and Kucha across the western line, held by Tarim lords (sheet tab).

How things stand that morning

Under the idiqut; no raid or dispute recorded.

Wealth

Irrigated fields, grapes and cotton, the road trade, monastery rents.

Military

None known; local levies.

Threats

  • The border with the Tarim towns
  • Famine or a failure of the water

Places of note

  • Toksun: West end of the depression, on the Karashahr road
  • Pichan (Shanshan): East end, on the road to Hami
  • Lukchun: Oasis town south of the Flaming Mountains (position approximate)
  • Toyuq: Valley of cave temples (position approximate)

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Geography from the oasis layout; district officers are from the later Turfan documents (recalled).

On the map: The district boundaries are a reading of the oasis layout.

Primary sources for Qocho

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
  • History of the Liao, chapter 30, on the Western Liao, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1344). The only Chinese official notice of the Qara Khitai, a few pages at the end of juan 30. Read online
  • History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
  • History of the World Conqueror: the Qara Khitai (Gur Khans) and the Uyghurs of Beshbaliq, Ala al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni (begun about 1252 to 1253, ends with 1260). Juvayni's chapters on the Uyghur kingdom (its origin legend, Beshbaliq and Qocho, and the idiqut Barchuq's murder of the Qara Khitai resident before his submission to Chinggis Khan in 1209) and on the Gur Khans of the Qara Khitai are the fullest Muslim account of the Tarim and Zhetysu around 1200: the gurkhan Zhilugu's court at Balasagun, his tax collectors in the oasis towns and in Samarkand, his relations with the Khwarazmshah Tekish and then Muhammad, and the arrival of the Naiman prince Kuchlug in 1208. Read online
  • Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter. Read online
  • Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
  • History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
  • The History of the World Conqueror, Ata-Malik Juvayni (1252 to 1260). Written for the Mongols but with a long retrospective on the powers they destroyed. Read online

3 more in the sources library for The Tarim, the Uyghurs and Xia.

Sources and studies

  1. Wikipedia: Qocho (list of idiquts drawn from Turghun Almas, flagged by the page itself as full of gaps)
  2. Yuan shi, juan 122, biography of Barchuq Art Tegin (zh.wikisource.org)
  3. James Hamilton, Les Ouighours a l'epoque des Cinq Dynasties (1955), cited from memory

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.